GALA and BWLG

[Chris Beckwith]

I agree with Alice, too.  Some additional thoughts:

Now that we've just worked together to cross our first hurdle (deciding
what GALA is going to be about, more or less), it would be nice if we
could keep our momentum AND our direction for a little while, at least.
Besides, since GALA has no fees/rules whatever for joining at present,
there is nothing to stop members of the BWLG participating in GALA right
now.  Maybe we could extend a welcome to them or something, and not worry
about heavy-duty issues like mergers right now(?)  If they perhaps invited
interested GALA members to participate in their conference next year, it
could be a learning experience and also a de facto passing of the torch.
I agree with what several others have said, that it has been a great
experience feeling like I'm really a part of GALA as we are still
trying to get born (or hatched?); I don't want to lose that.

Chris

On Mon, 14 Jun 1999, Alice Freed wrote:

> I read Suzanne Wertheim's posting with great interest and was
> happy to learn first hand about the status of the BWLG. I was,
> however, dismayed at the announcement of the merger of GALA with
> BWLG because it seems to have been decided without a discussion
> or vote from the people who are currently involved in GALA. As
> long as the democratic process that we have talked so much about
> is continuing, I think it might be more appropriate to have this
> presented to the membership and then voted on.. The new
> organizing plan that the facilitators of GALA described a few
> days ago was to be based on a smaller "elected" group that would
> continue the work of organizing GALA. But that smaller group has
> not yet been elected. Despite this, Suzanne reports the
> following:
>
>      "Over the last year or so, it became clear to me, and some
> others, that BWLG was no longer self-sustainable, that its mission
> and reach had outgrown the resources (time and otherwise) of graduate
> students in the Berkeley linguistics department. After talking to
> Mary Bucholtz and some other GALA list organizers, I decided that
> the best course of action would be to have BWLG merge with GALA.
> After  some e-mail discussion and a vote, a consensus was reached
> that a merge with GALA should take place. The first clear passing
> of the baton, as it were, will be a co-run conference in Berkeley
> in the spring of 2000."
>
>      While I support the idea of GALA lending support to the BWLG
> 2000 conference (or holding a conference in its place,) I am not
> sure that I like the idea of a "merger" of these two groups. This
> merger is not presented as if it were just for this conference
> but something of a more general nature. One of  my reservations
> about combining these two organizations is that BWLG, like any
> organization, now has a history and thus a culture of its own.
> This may inadvertently modify the shape and practices of GALA..
> For example,  I have mixed feelings about "the involvement of
> graduate students at high levels" depending on how this is
> defined. Although I am very much in favor of having graduate
> student participation, I think there are some down sides to this
> as well. Graduate students are usually under a considerable amount
> of academic pressure and to give GALA (or any organization) the
> attention it will need will force them to put their studies
> aside. (Of course people can make this a personal choice but from
> where I sit -- on the other side of the desk -- I must say that I
> have some reservations about it.)  Secondly, I am not sure that I
> think that the review process for papers at a GALA-sponsored
> conference should be the same as the one used for BWLG. I don't
> want to go on at length and I certainly do not want to seem
> disapproving but there seemed to be some problems in this regard at the
> last BWLG conference. I don't think the reasons for this were the
> fault of individual students but due to the burdens of such an
> undertaking and the collective interests of the students
> involved. Finally, by making the decision to continue to hold a
> gender and language conference at Berkeley, (an otherwise
> beautiful place for a conference). the only graduate students who
> can be easily involved continue to be the students at Berkeley.
>
>      The most important two points of this message are the
> following: In my opinion:
>
>      1) Before any final decision is made, a GALA-L vote should
> be taken about a possible relationship between GALA and BWLG.
>
>      2) A separate vote should be taken about what sort of
> conference should be held in 2000 and whether it will be a BWLG
> conference that is held with the added support of GALA or whether
> it should be a new and different conference that replaces the
> venerable Berkeley Women and Language Conference.
>
>      ---------------------------------------------
>
> Alice Freed
> Linguistics Department
> Montclair State University
> Upper Montclair, NJ 07043
> freeda at alpha.montclair.edu
> (973) 655-7505
>